Disney, Day 1

We woke up the next morning feeling ready to hit the park.  We'd originally planned to be at Disney World when they opened at 9, but the kids slept in, and I hate to let a good opportunity go to waste.

I had Fast Passes set up for the day, but I wasn't too sure yet about how the whole system worked, so we just set out to have some fun, double-stroller in tow.

As we pulled onto Disney Property, still 10-15 minutes away from the entrance to Disney World, Hannah started to cry that she had to go to the potty.  I explained that she'd have to wait a few minutes, and the situation began to escalate from there.  There was no where she could go, and I didn't have anything in the car to make the situation any easier, either.  Once we got to Disney World and parked in the Peter Pan lot, we realized that we had to get on the tram before entering the park.  The heat was already intense - we were in need of water and sunscreen immediately.  Sunscreen, we had.  Water, we did not.  And we still needed a bathroom.  Hannah was reaching hysteria.  I took her back to the car and prepared to let her go in the back on a bunch of baby wipes or to use our extra clothes before we even entered the theme park.  Except then she couldn't go.

So we went back to the line to get on the tram and proceeded to fold up our double stroller for the first of 47 times that day.  We took the tram to the Ticketing Station (still not in the park, but they had a bathroom - no water bottles, for sale).  While Hannah was using the bathroom, she accidentally tinkled on her shorts, so we ended up using her extra clothes before entering the theme park anyway.  I hoped we'd be good to go for the rest of the day.  As you can imagine, we were hot and sweaty and frazzled.  Our morning hadn't been the smoothest, and we were still not even in!

We waited in line for the monorail, and what felt like an hour after parking, we finally arrived on Main Street, USA!  We did it.  We guzzled the first water we could find, took Hannah to the bathroom again (for the first three hours of our day, we took Hannah to the bathroom every twenty minutes - not an easy task at a theme park, and I was beginning to worry that something was seriously wrong with her), and headed toward Cinderella's castle.

Amazingly, we made it just in time to see a live show starring none other than Mickey and Minnie Mouse!  We couldn't believe we'd finally struck good luck!

I read about this great side spot to take pictures of the castle without too many people, and they were right!

Next, Hannah got to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella, and I'm pretty sure she was on cloud nine.  Jack also had the opportunity to meet them, but he was being a little bashful and hung back with me and Brad.  This was our first Fast Pass experience, and it was dreamy.  We waited maybe 10 minutes.  Maybe.  (And it was a good thing because Hannah had to go potty.  Again.)

We went on tons of rides (Peter Pan's Flight was their favorite!) and had lots of fun.

 Prince Charming's Carousel Ride

Meeting Woody and Jessie

Cat nap in the stroller

Precious moments

Happy boy - he wore that hat ALL DAY

We all had a really good, very full day, and left the park around 7 pm after hitting the gift shops for souvenirs, and a street vendor for two of the most beautiful balloons we'd ever seen.  I was thinking they were giving them away for free, but that was obviously too good to be true.  The fact that everyone wishes you have a magical day after you spend money makes it just a tiny bit easier to do so :)

We also had a pretty, concrete list of the rides we wanted to visit when we returned in a couple of days.  I had some work to do planning our Fast Passes and mapping out Day 2 so that we wouldn't be doing as much back-tracking as we did the first day.  We also made a mental-note to leave the double-stroller behind - we were convinced the day would be easier without it.

But our day was far from over.  Just as we buckled Miss Hannah into her car seat, she began to cry hysterically, saying that her ears hurt.  When I asked which one, she told me, "Bof of them!"

The crying escalated as we drove back to our hotel.  We didn't even make it inside.  Instead, Siri helped me locate the closest Urgent Care in town.  We switched drivers so I could soothe our crying Hannah and hungry Jack in the backseat.  We spent the next three hours at a pediatric urgent care center.  Still convinced that she did not have a urinary tract infection (I say still because I took her to our pediatrician weeks ago after frequent, sudden accidents at nap time), they did inform us that Hannah had at least one ear infection and that the other one was pretty blocked and hard to examine.  We left with a prescription for oral antibiotics (thank goodness, they gave her the first dose while we were there) and ear drops.  It was almost 11 pm, and we were starving.  And exhausted doesn't even begin to cover it.

Amazingly, we were able to feed the kids and put them to bed before midnight.  They slept so well, and they slept late the next morning.  I wasn't about to disturb their slumber, so whenever they awoke, that's when we began to get ready for our day at SeaWorld.

As soon as she woke up, our sweet Hannah informed us that her ears felt much better :)